Words of Governor Walz before last night’s action.
Protestors/rioters tried to cross the river from Minneapolis to St. Paul last night, but the St. Paul police held the bridges. Police and National Guard apparently kept most of the protestors on the move, splitting the large groups into smaller groups, and not allowing them to rejoin. They seemed eager to be taking offensive action finally, and not much concerned about niceties like media credentials—according to reporters, who reported about as much on this as on anything else.
There were a number of reports of cars without license plates, which continued into today, and while there were some reports of out-of-state plates on several police calls, most of the 150+ arrests made seem to have been of Minnesotans.
Shots were fired at various times, and there were reports of visible guns. There may have been a campaign to flood 911 with fake calls; Minneapolis’s web site was under cyber attack last week.
People were defending their streets and businesses, in at least one case making a group of protesters
turn around and choose a different route, by brandishing baseball bats and clubs.
Two bodies were found in the last couple days, although the story that there have been no deaths so far is persisting.
Tonight there is curfew again, and a 5 pm closure of major highways. There were protests at the Capitol this afternoon, and now the protesters are marching along the freeway toward Minneapolis. Other protests under way in Minneapolis, with two hours until curfew.
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Update: For some reason, they were unable to close Highway 35W on time. Many protestors/rioters now on the 35W bridge—the one that replaced the bridge that collapsed into the river with people on it some years ago. There’s a gas tanker on the bridge which they are attacking; it is reported to be empty, aside from the poor driver.
One thing I noticed last night is that a bridge could be a bit hard to get off of, if your opponents are at both ends of it. Hmm.
Sunday, May 31, 2020
Saturday, May 30, 2020
Too much to keep up with
But sometimes taking a low-information approach helps to make the big picture clearer...like in that artist technique where you squint at your artwork to see what is wrong with it.
More or less the entire Minnesota National Guard is being deployed. Major highways into and across Minneapolis and St. Paul were shut down at 7 pm. Curfew at 8, again being ignored by numerous protestors in Minneapolis, despite being told in four? press conferences today to stay home. Last time I checked, the main body of protestors at the 5th precinct building (I think) was splitting, some on the move, some staying put.
Some reports of shots fired in various places, and there are hints that police and National Guard are being more proactive tonight. An AR-15 was confiscated.
Minneapolis neighborhoods were making neighborhood-watch-type preparations, clearly having little faith in their leaders.
Blocking urban streets with concrete barriers only slows cars down, it doesn’t stop them—there are too many ways to get around them.
Arrest records (such as they are) do not support officials’ assertions that 80 to 100% of rioters last night were from out of state.
In the 6:30 pm press conference, St. Paul Mayor Carter went on for some time about why the protestors wouldn’t be satisfied with justice being done only for the Floyd case...and then in the sentences following he used the words “demonstrate” and “double down”. I don’t think any of that helped.
More or less the entire Minnesota National Guard is being deployed. Major highways into and across Minneapolis and St. Paul were shut down at 7 pm. Curfew at 8, again being ignored by numerous protestors in Minneapolis, despite being told in four? press conferences today to stay home. Last time I checked, the main body of protestors at the 5th precinct building (I think) was splitting, some on the move, some staying put.
Some reports of shots fired in various places, and there are hints that police and National Guard are being more proactive tonight. An AR-15 was confiscated.
Minneapolis neighborhoods were making neighborhood-watch-type preparations, clearly having little faith in their leaders.
Blocking urban streets with concrete barriers only slows cars down, it doesn’t stop them—there are too many ways to get around them.
Arrest records (such as they are) do not support officials’ assertions that 80 to 100% of rioters last night were from out of state.
In the 6:30 pm press conference, St. Paul Mayor Carter went on for some time about why the protestors wouldn’t be satisfied with justice being done only for the Floyd case...and then in the sentences following he used the words “demonstrate” and “double down”. I don’t think any of that helped.
That did not go well
Most of the protesters ended up at the 5th precinct police building, which became the center of more destruction for a couple of hours. Police and National Guard mostly disappeared during that time, leaving many people asking where they were. Even a couple of Minneapolis City Council members. Around midnight, hundreds of police and National Guard troops advanced on the 5th precinct location to disperse the crowd, and were met with resistance, including some gunfire, but they appeared to be retaking the area and to finally be starting to make some real arrests. Metro Transit had said at some point that they were not going to help transport arrestees.
I took a break, and came back not much more than an hour later to see Governor Walz doing a press conference and admitting to failure. The TV station's sidebar said there had been "several" arrests.
Power Line's take on the night and the press conference is here. Includes links to press conference videos. Walz did really say something like "Sorry we couldn't protect your small, minority-owned business, but we had to protect the Federal Reserve first." Mayor Frey (paraphrasing): "This all makes me so sad...I just know we're better than this!" Walz said Frey had been awake for 72 hours straight.
Walz gave his overall priorities as preserving lives, protecting property, and re-establishing order, in that order. He seems to be trying to avoid the appearance of using force that could be characterized as excessive or lethal, under a belief that it would provoke a shift away from rioters primarily damaging property, to widespread person-on-person violence. He claimed that they didn't have the "resources" to make arrests, and were going to increase National Guard numbers to 1700.
Notable from the press conference is that he put some blame on organized rioters, specifically "white supremacists" and drug cartels. What about Antifa? I'm listening to some of this morning's press conference now, and this point about organized rioting is being very strongly emphasized. Walz said he believes only 20% of the rioters are Minnesotans! There were pleas for protestors to obey curfew and to not provide cover for outside agitators, and he was definitely painting it as an Us versus Them situation. That is new, and it's an interesting shift in the psychology of the response to the rioting.
Finally some overnight arrest numbers were given: about 20 in St. Paul. I didn't catch exactly, but it was said that all, or most, or many, of them were from out of state. St. Paul was much quieter than Minneapolis last night.
Minneapolis had 15 to 20 arrests. Total! The number of buildings damaged must be into the high hundreds by now.
Even the Star Tribune was criticizing Walz on Friday.
I took a break, and came back not much more than an hour later to see Governor Walz doing a press conference and admitting to failure. The TV station's sidebar said there had been "several" arrests.
Power Line's take on the night and the press conference is here. Includes links to press conference videos. Walz did really say something like "Sorry we couldn't protect your small, minority-owned business, but we had to protect the Federal Reserve first." Mayor Frey (paraphrasing): "This all makes me so sad...I just know we're better than this!" Walz said Frey had been awake for 72 hours straight.
Walz gave his overall priorities as preserving lives, protecting property, and re-establishing order, in that order. He seems to be trying to avoid the appearance of using force that could be characterized as excessive or lethal, under a belief that it would provoke a shift away from rioters primarily damaging property, to widespread person-on-person violence. He claimed that they didn't have the "resources" to make arrests, and were going to increase National Guard numbers to 1700.
Notable from the press conference is that he put some blame on organized rioters, specifically "white supremacists" and drug cartels. What about Antifa? I'm listening to some of this morning's press conference now, and this point about organized rioting is being very strongly emphasized. Walz said he believes only 20% of the rioters are Minnesotans! There were pleas for protestors to obey curfew and to not provide cover for outside agitators, and he was definitely painting it as an Us versus Them situation. That is new, and it's an interesting shift in the psychology of the response to the rioting.
Finally some overnight arrest numbers were given: about 20 in St. Paul. I didn't catch exactly, but it was said that all, or most, or many, of them were from out of state. St. Paul was much quieter than Minneapolis last night.
Minneapolis had 15 to 20 arrests. Total! The number of buildings damaged must be into the high hundreds by now.
Even the Star Tribune was criticizing Walz on Friday.
Friday, May 29, 2020
About to start
Minneapolis and St. Paul announced 8 pm curfews this afternoon, followed after a while by inner-ring suburbs, and two neighboring counties. Probably many people have yet to hear about them. There are some exemptions apparently, including traveling to and from work
There’s a large protest going on now in Minneapolis, which blocked the 35W freeway for a while, that doesn’t look like it is going to comply with the curfew.
Businesses all over the place have been closing early, many being boarded up. Many volunteers were helping with clean-ups today. The governor appeared for a news conference this morning, announced that he had taken over from Minneapolis Mayor Frey in the middle of the night, and was asked what he intended to do about protestors violating his executive order by meeting in groups greater than ten.
National Guard last night were given limited roles, mainly defending the Capitol and firefighters.
There’s a large protest going on now in Minneapolis, which blocked the 35W freeway for a while, that doesn’t look like it is going to comply with the curfew.
Businesses all over the place have been closing early, many being boarded up. Many volunteers were helping with clean-ups today. The governor appeared for a news conference this morning, announced that he had taken over from Minneapolis Mayor Frey in the middle of the night, and was asked what he intended to do about protestors violating his executive order by meeting in groups greater than ten.
National Guard last night were given limited roles, mainly defending the Capitol and firefighters.
No reason to stop in either case
Both the peaceful protesting and the unpeaceful rioting and looting increased yesterday. Target stores all over the Cities were closed, and Metro Transit bus and train services shut down. Mail service suspended in a few areas.
Last night's madness included the mayor of Minneapolis ordering 3rd precinct police to abandon their building (the precinct headquarters mentioned in previous posts), as rioters broke into it and set it on fire. Some police gear was apparently looted from it. USPS trucks stolen and used to ram things. Other fires were going on in the same area, extending the devastation of Wednesday night (which people had been working on cleaning up throughout the day). Some other parts of the city also saw smashing, looting, and fires.
There was also a large and mostly peaceful protest in downtown Minneapolis of thousands of people, circling around and stopping for a time at the Hennepin County Government Center, where I had a spell of jury duty once. The presence of the county jail right across the street perhaps helped to keep the peace there; police acted to disperse the crowd when it was moving on from there through downtown.
In St. Paul, mostly along University Avenue, there was rioting and a number of fires and according to police over 170 buildings damaged or looted, although some of the rioters broke off and left to go see the 3rd precinct fire when the news reached them. It looked like police continued to protect the SuperTarget.
Looters and arsonists were spreading out a bit: robbing businesses along Grand Avenue in St. Paul, where there are many upscale boutiques, and apparently also setting fires in businesses along Energy Park Drive, which is a somewhat industrial area that isn't central, but just sits there in between other places. Out in the first-ring northern suburb of Roseville, there were break-ins in various places, apparently including a group forcing their way into the Rosedale Mall. Suburban police had warned businesses and malls to prepare for things like this. In the southern suburb of Apple Valley, a courthouse was set on fire.
It is harder to get news of these smaller and much more dispersed events.
The National Guard was finally called in by the governor yesterday, 500 of them, but they were visibly deployed in only a few places, so far as I can tell. The governor has also not been very visible for the past day or so.
The mayor of Minneapolis in a press conference was asked about what President Trump had tweeted about him, and I'm pretty sure that his response to Trump was far more forceful than any of his responses to the rioting have been so far. Trump has mostly stayed away from the topic of the riots, probably for the best, since there are a nontrivial number of people around here who hate him so much that they would go out and start burning things down just to spite him.
Trump's idea in his partially-censored tweet, that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts", is at odds with Minnesota law, which doesn't allow the use of deadly force to defend property, and would require federal intervention, I believe.
Last night's madness included the mayor of Minneapolis ordering 3rd precinct police to abandon their building (the precinct headquarters mentioned in previous posts), as rioters broke into it and set it on fire. Some police gear was apparently looted from it. USPS trucks stolen and used to ram things. Other fires were going on in the same area, extending the devastation of Wednesday night (which people had been working on cleaning up throughout the day). Some other parts of the city also saw smashing, looting, and fires.
There was also a large and mostly peaceful protest in downtown Minneapolis of thousands of people, circling around and stopping for a time at the Hennepin County Government Center, where I had a spell of jury duty once. The presence of the county jail right across the street perhaps helped to keep the peace there; police acted to disperse the crowd when it was moving on from there through downtown.
In St. Paul, mostly along University Avenue, there was rioting and a number of fires and according to police over 170 buildings damaged or looted, although some of the rioters broke off and left to go see the 3rd precinct fire when the news reached them. It looked like police continued to protect the SuperTarget.
Looters and arsonists were spreading out a bit: robbing businesses along Grand Avenue in St. Paul, where there are many upscale boutiques, and apparently also setting fires in businesses along Energy Park Drive, which is a somewhat industrial area that isn't central, but just sits there in between other places. Out in the first-ring northern suburb of Roseville, there were break-ins in various places, apparently including a group forcing their way into the Rosedale Mall. Suburban police had warned businesses and malls to prepare for things like this. In the southern suburb of Apple Valley, a courthouse was set on fire.
It is harder to get news of these smaller and much more dispersed events.
The National Guard was finally called in by the governor yesterday, 500 of them, but they were visibly deployed in only a few places, so far as I can tell. The governor has also not been very visible for the past day or so.
The mayor of Minneapolis in a press conference was asked about what President Trump had tweeted about him, and I'm pretty sure that his response to Trump was far more forceful than any of his responses to the rioting have been so far. Trump has mostly stayed away from the topic of the riots, probably for the best, since there are a nontrivial number of people around here who hate him so much that they would go out and start burning things down just to spite him.
Trump's idea in his partially-censored tweet, that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts", is at odds with Minnesota law, which doesn't allow the use of deadly force to defend property, and would require federal intervention, I believe.
Thursday, May 28, 2020
And into St. Paul
We also lived in the St. Paul Midway area for a while. Today: Looting along University Avenue; police protecting SuperTarget. This guy also has his reporting from last night’s rioting in Minneapolis, if you scroll down a bit.
Further update
List of damaged buildings with some photos and videos, across the affected neighborhoods. The library did get damaged.
There were reports of shots fired near Target in the early morning hours, along with some looting still going on even now. Several other cars were burned, possibly at an auto repair place. City street sweepers were out clearing broken glass from the streets.
There were reports of shots fired near Target in the early morning hours, along with some looting still going on even now. Several other cars were burned, possibly at an auto repair place. City street sweepers were out clearing broken glass from the streets.
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